


undercover 2: electric boogaloo

by frankgrimes



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Undercover, Undercover Missions, post-T.R.A.C.K.S., written pre-T.A.H.I.T.I.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 23:11:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1244011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankgrimes/pseuds/frankgrimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It came as a surprise when Jemma found out that she was being honored by the International Science Foundation for her work. Frankly, she was not surprised when Coulson announced that the rest of the team would be going to the gala with her on an undercover mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. firsts and then some

**Author's Note:**

> Written with some of the Ward/Simmons Ship Week themes in mind.
> 
> Different POVs throughout.

**JEMMA SIMMONS**

The first time Jemma Simmons won an award for science was when she was six years old. It wasn't a very prestigious award, and the prize-winning experiment wasn't necessarily ground-breaking. It was for a community organized science fair for children, and the first prize consisted of a blue ribbon, a gift card for Sainsbury equaling the amount of 50 quid, and a picture with the mayor that would make the local paper.

Even with such humble beginnings, Jemma went on to win several science awards with a little more clout in the biochemistry community. Though ever since she and Fitz were recruited by Agent Coulson, she found less time to pursue any long-term research, and only worked on short-term projects that pertained to situations in which the team managed to find themselves entangled. Not that she expected any blue ribbons or plaques with her name engraved for that work, nor did she feel under-appreciated... No, Jemma enjoyed her work with the team and she honestly found it worth her while. But she did miss the silent competition, the buzzing in her spine that traveled to her fingers as she typed up her papers, the anticipation she felt every time she submitted a paper for review and awaited revision periods... 

It came as a surprise when she found out by email that she was being honored by the International Science Foundation for her work in the symbiotic biology between Earth and alien life. There was going to be a black-tie gala, and she was asked to prepare a speech and everything! 

Her excitement was decreased (or was it increased? She wasn't too sure of which) when it was announced (frankly to no surprise) that the rest of the team would be going with her... on an undercover mission. 

The team was gathered in the meeting room when Agent Coulson announced that their next mission was to capture Alex Kellerman, the former CEO of a small subsidiary of the now defunct Quinn Worldwide. While publicly known to be a generous patron of the arts and sciences, communications found out that in some underground circles he is known more for recruiting young scientists to work on various alien-related research of more nefarious persuasion.

"Our purpose for being at the gala is to monitor Kellerman. By following him and the scientists he plans to poach, we'll would be able to discern specifically the direction the Clairvoyant's plans are heading." Coulson turned to the two scientists, "Since you two probably run in the same circles as most of the guests, you'll be going as yourselves..."

So according to Coulson's presentation, no one at S.H.I.E.L.D. was even aware that Jemma was being honored at the event. 

Jemma interjected, "And this is the gala, the one that's being held San Francisco in two weeks?"

Coulson flipped through his file to check. "Yes."

"Oh, well, you see..." Jemma stumbled, earning long curious stares from the rest of the team. "I've already received an invitation to the gala. I'm actually going to be the recipient of the Franklin Award. They told me my invitation will be coming by mail, so it'll probably be here in about--"

"Yup," said Skye, who was tapping through the website on her tablet. "They just updated their site an hour ago with the names of award recipients. You're on here."

"Congratulations, Simmons," said the usually taciturn Agent May. Skye set down her tablet to give Jemma a small and short round of applause, immediately joined by the rest of the team.

Jemma beamed at them. "Why, thank you!"

"Okay," interrupted Coulson. "Well, at least we have two weeks until the event, so we can plan this seamlessly..."

\---

**SKYE**

"When did you even find the time to sit down and write a paper?" Skye asked Jemma as the three youngest team members descended the stairs leading to the cargo bay of the bus.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me!" hissed Fitz, maneuvering past Skye to walk right behind Jemma.

Skye piped up, smirking, "Fitz, are you jealous?"

"No!" Fitz scoffed. "I could easily win awards if I wanted to--"

"Sure, if you made an effort like Simmons--"

"Excuse me for being a little busy improving all your weapons and inventing complex gadgets that makes doing your job a bit easier!" Fitz stopped walking as soon as they entered the lab and placed both hands on his hips. "And I'll have you know, I am a very important person at MIT, at Caltech, at Cambridge, and not to mention S.H.I.E.L.D.!"

Skye just smiled teasingly at Fitz as he glared at her.

"Honestly, you two!" said Jemma in an amused tone. She walked over to the other side of the holotable and swiped her hand over it to wake it from sleep. "If I wasn't so sure of myself, I'd think you two were Fitzsimmons!"

"Well, thank you," said Skye jokingly, her tone also flecked with warmth. "You guys make feel like one of the gang."

Skye watched as Jemma's head cocked to the side and they smiled at each other through the sudden appearance of electric blue holograms between them. "Aww!"

"Ugh," Fitz groaned, "if you two are going to continue this little love-fest, I'm going to shoot myself with the Night-Night gun."

The two women rolled their eyes. Jemma continued fiddling with the hologram specs as she returned the conversation back to Fitz, "Just so you know, Skye, Leo here has received just as many accolades as I have."

"Really? Well, go ahead, Fitz," said Skye, twisting around to face Fitz. She leaned her hip against the lab bench and folded her arms as if to brace herself, "Tell me all about your trophies."

Instead, Fitz looked away and shrugged. "Nah, I don't like to brag."

Skye and Jemma both snorted as Grant entered the lab. 

"And the duo became a trio!" Grant observed lightly. He turned to the young engineer. "Fitz, Coulson's been trying to reach you through the coms. He needs to talk to you about modifying them, and I guess to fix them as well."

After watching Fitz leave, Skye moved to the other side of the lab to sit in front of her laptop. While brushing her fingers back and forth quickly on the track pad to wake the laptop from sleep, she couldn't help but eavesdrop on Grant and Jemma's conversation that was transpiring behind her. 

"So, uh," Grant began quietly. Skye could hear him walk closer towards Jemma, tapping his index finger on the edge of the holotable in what she perceived to be awkward dawdling. "I guess we should start calling you three 'Fitz-Simmons-Skye.'"

Skye grimaced to herself and shook her head at Grant's shameful attempt at making a joke. Alternatively, Jemma's reaction was much more genial as she puffed out a small laugh, "Actually, I was leaning more towards 'Fitz-Skimmons.'" 

"How very Brangelina of you," said Grant amusingly.

"Yes, I thought so!"

After that awkward attempt at small talk, it became quiet for longer than what Skye thought was normal. Realizing that during this exchange she had simply been staring at her computer screen which had dimmed itself again, Skye proceeded to type nonsense into the terminal emulator while waiting for Grant and Jemma to continue. As a third party observer lacking the visuals, the wait was nerve-wracking. She began to imagine scenarios in which the two had died, or maybe started making out inaudibly, or perhaps they sneaked out without her knowing--

"Did you, um, need anything?" asked Jemma softly. Skye tried to type lightly and more slowly so she could hear properly without being obvious about her eavesdropping.

"No," Grant said simply. "I just wanted to see if you were okay."

Skye maneuvered her laptop slightly askew and tilted her screen so she could watch Grant and Jemma's reflection against the green text and black background of the emulator. Ever since that incident with the Chituari helmet, Grant became much kinder towards Jemma. While he also warmed up to the rest of the team, Skye noticed that his interactions with the biochemist were definitely sweeter and more considerate compared to his interaction with the others. Now seeing it in action at this very moment and in a somewhat private setting... She could kill for some popcorn right about now.

"Okay?" Jemma dropped her hands slightly from the hologram and stared at Grant confused. "I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"Because the whole team is going undercover on the night you're supposed to receive your award. I'm sorry if we're taking this moment away from you."

"Oh! No, that's fine. I'm fine," Jemma repeated herself, brushing off his apology breezily. Her hands dropped completely from the hologram. "I've won plenty of awards before. And," she lowered her voice in a mock-whisper and continued facetiously, "I don't want to sound too full of myself, but I don't think this will be my last one."

"That's good," laughed Grant. "I'm glad. I know Coulson was worried about you when he found out you were the guest of honor."

Jemma shrugged, deflecting, "Well, one of the _many_ guests of honor. Honestly, it's just a formality, really. I just happened to be one of the first and youngest biochemists to work with and publish an article about Chituari epidemiology. I mean, they only informed me today before I even got an invitation! I literally received an email practically an hour before I knew we were going undercover. And two weeks before the actual event, can you believe that? Besides, I'm sure they only want me there to lure rich people and persuade them to donate their money to fund organizations that are developing new alien-related research. So, really, it's not that big of a deal. That isn't to say that I'm not honored! No! It _is_ an honor. I am honored, of course."

 _'Please, say 'honor' again,'_ Skye thought sarcastically. She had been shaking her head during the latter half of the biochemist's rant, closing her eyes in secondhand embarrassment and hoping she could telepathically message her friend to stop talking immediately. 

Opening one eye, Skye could see that she was wrong, and that there were no negative reactions after that rant after all! To her surprise and delight, Grant was still grinning with amusement.

Grant placed a congratulatory hand on Jemma's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "Well, I'm sure you earned it."

"Thank you, Grant."

His hand slid down to her upper arm and Skye's eyes widened in almost girlish glee when she noticed Jemma lean her head to the side, almost as if she missed the warmth of his hand against her cheek. Grant, stepping closer, opened his mouth to say something else when there was a loud screech of feedback. Everyone clutched their ears.

"Testing, testing, one, two, three," came a loud Scottish voice through everyone's coms. 

"Please do not deafen my team, Fitz," said Coulson.

"Sorry, sir," Fitz apologized, still through everyone's coms. "I tried the--"

And communications was down again.

Returning focus back to her S.O. and the scientist, and in an attempt to dim her laptop even further so she could see this burgeoning couple more clearly, Skye accidentally locked eyes with Jemma through the reflection on the screen.

 _Busted._ Skye could practically hear the two of them jump away from each other as she closed her laptop, and lifted it into her arms while standing up from her chair. She turned to face the two. If she didn't feel so bad for their tender moment being rudely interrupted, she would have laughed at Jemma's deer-in-headlights expression, or at Grant's recognizable stoney annoyed-at-Skye glare.

"Well," Skye smiled at them awkwardly, walking backwards towards the door. "I'm just gonna... yell at Fitz and then do some research in my bunk, so... See you later."

Skye scurried away with excitement filling her. She couldn't wait to corner Jemma later...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think it's fairly obvious that I'm making up a lot of these science-thingies. Thanks for reading anyways!


	2. Settling In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is un-beta'd, so sorry for any errors. I hope to finish this in time for the new episode, but at this rate... I'm not too sure. We'll see!

**PHIL COULSON**

“… I just have to modify it so we'll be able to jump to different frequencies.”

“Great," said Coulson. He followed Fitz out of his office. "We need to make the back-up coms impervious to any scramblers. I don't want a repeat of what happened last time.”

“I’ll get right on it," said Fitz, brows furrowed as he fiddled with an earpiece and hardly looking up as he walked out of the office.

Coulson’s hands rose up as if to hover around the engineer’s shoulders in case he stumbled into a wall, but they dropped back to his sides when he heard the soft thunder of Skye’s stomping resonate from the stairwell. Fitz looked up from the earpiece to acknowledge her presence before maneuvering around her to head back down to the lab.

“Hey, Fitz," Skye called to him loudly. He stopped and turned back. "Uh, what are you working on?”

Coulson watched Skye slink her way around Fitz almost as if to distract him from leaving. Interest piqued, Coulson decided to stay and watch this play out.

"Oh, well, Coulson just asked me to make some improvements with the coms so we don't lose contact with each other like what happened on the train.”

“How are you going to do that?”

Skye's natural curiosity was nothing out of the ordinary. But her furtive glances toward the stairwell made Coulson cut in, "Are you interested in expanding your technological skill set, Skye?”

Her eyes landed on Coulson as if she just noticed he was there. " _Yes._ I think it would make me a more... well-rounded agent?”

“Well, come on then," said Fitz, turning back towards the staircase and signaling her to follow him. "I'll show you how to change the — excuse me, Ward—”

Agent Ward appeared through the doorway leading to the stairwell and quickly moved his body aside so Fitz could duck under his arm that gripped the door frame. Coulson noticed Ward's eyes narrowed when he caught sight of a sheepish looking Skye.

“You coming, Skye?" Fitz's voice echoed in the stairwell.

“Nah, I'm just going to do a little more research," Skye called out to Fitz, avoiding eye contact with Ward. She pointed at Coulson while retreating towards her bunker, "I'll update you if I find new info on the ISF's events coordinator.”

Coulson nodded and after Skye scurried away he turned his attention to Ward.

Ever since Coulson informed Ward of his professional opinion regarding his and May's situation, the specialist became more reserved when interacting with Coulson. After Skye got shot, Ward's reservations evolved into second-guessing Coulson's every decision. Between the insubordination and the uncertainty of Skye's condition, the stress would have culminated in a confrontation had it not been for Skye's emergence from her coma.

Coulson was filled with remorse. Skye tried to absolve him of the guilt he felt for pushing her and the team to capture Quinn. And from what Coulson could ascertain (more like overheard; there was no real privacy on this plane), Skye informed Ward of her personal reasons for her vehemence after a failed attempt at a heart-to-heart turned into a shouting match. Despite being in her makeshift recovery room that was tucked behind the lab in the cargo hold of the plane, the rest of the team could hear the muffled bursts from the heated argument, which ended with Ward calling for Simmons because Skye split her stitches. When Coulson reached the room, he could see Jemma worrying over Skye with sutures in hand, and Skye laughing and wincing as she flipped the bird at Ward who was also laughing and apologizing at the same time. All was well... or at least slightly better than it had been.

As for Ward’s and May’s arrangement, Coulson decided to stay out of it, choosing to trust the two agents to be responsible enough for it to not affect their work. It. Sex. Since that talk, there did not seem to be any significant dynamic changes in the team (aside from Skye’s coma, which was unrelated anyway). As far as Coulson was concerned, if there was no noise, it wasn’t his business. But that didn’t stop him from continuing his observation of the specialist’s behavior.

After the argument with Skye, Ward's overt skepticism waned into a strictly professional attitude towards Coulson. Even if things remained a bit icy between them, they both had similar interests of fighting bad guys and keeping the team safe. At least they trusted each other in that respect.

“Did you talk to Simmons?" Coulson asked.

“Yes," Ward responded. "She doesn't seem bothered at all, and didn't indicate any hesitation about the mission.”

“Good.”

And with that, they went their separate ways.

\---  
  
 **JEMMA SIMMONS**

It was uncharacteristically quiet in the lab. 

It wasn’t as if she and Fitz constantly talked every time they were in an enclosed space together. Their relationship, both professional and otherwise, was cozy enough that they appreciated the hushed moments, when concentration and introversive creativity thrived. It balanced out their hyper stages of constant back-and-forth information sharing.

When Fitz entered the lab, Jemma looked up from her microscope, ready to inform him of her latest discovery regarding the soil samples they collected from Brazil. Instead she was met with a blank expression of disinterest. On any other day, Jemma would prattle on regardless, but there was something about his behavior earlier that stopped her. 

This hesitation went on for hours. Painful, strained, _polite_ hours with rare excuse-me’s and could-you-pass-that’s dispersed between long periods of silence. Had a stranger walked in on them, they’d think the two scientists never engaged in repartee that was built on years upon years of being young and brilliant together.

Jemma finally had it when Fitz stretched his arms up above his head, the usual indication that he was done for the day. Without one real conversation happening between them! It was practically unheard of!

“Are you angry with me?” Jemma asked, shrill. Her voice cracked, and Jemma tried to convince herself that it was because it remained unused for hours.

She watched him sigh, his shoulders sagging in defeat while his breath expelled through his nose in a long wind.

“I’m happy for you,” he responded, not really answering her question. 

She closed her dry and heavy eyes. She felt incredibly tired, and it wasn’t because she was working for the past four hours.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, suddenly facing her from across the bench. She knew what he was referring to without having to ask. “We always worked together.”

Jemma’s pried her eyes open. Did he feel left out? If he did, this surprised her. Despite being known for being practically attached to the hip, throughout their present tenure on Coulson’s team Fitz and Jemma each had their own opportunities of working on projects without the other. There had never been any resentment towards the other when they played their parts separately. Until now.

“I…” She didn’t know where to begin. “It was… therapeutic for me.”

After some hesitation, she lifted her eyes to his face. His brows were furrowed, concerned, as if urging her to continue.

“I couldn’t really sleep after the whole… almost dying thing. And nothing could distract me from thinking about it.” Jemma folded her hands together, twisting at the memory. “Ward was the one who suggested that if my brain wouldn’t let me escape it, then I should channel it into something useful. So I compiled all the data and sent it to the people at the Sandbox. And they were the ones who got me thinking about writing an article for publication…”

“You told Ward?” Fitz interrupted.

“It’s not as if he helped me compose anything! And it’s not like I went to him instead of you. He saw me in the common area one night and he said he could tell what was bothering me.”

Fitz nodded, avoiding her gaze. 

“I didn’t deliberately avoid telling you about it. I needed time to process what happened to me on a scientific level. It was… personal.”

She watched Fitz nod again slowly, waiting for him to say anything. After a few moments, she placed her palms down on the table, ready to retreat from the conversation.

“I’m not angry with you,” he finally said, rubbing his face tiredly. “I guess I was just surprised you didn’t ask for my help. It was a bit jarring, since we usually help each other with that stuff. And I didn’t know how to react to that.” 

He sighed again, and Jemma could tell from his tone that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with laying out his feeling so plainly. Her eyes softened appreciatively at his effort.

Finally he met her eyes. “And yes, I might be a bit jealous that you’re getting an award. I’m only human.”

They both smiled, happy to cut the tension.

He jerked his head towards the stairs. “You hungry?”

“Yeah” she said, moving around the table to stand next to him and amiably pushing her shoulder against him. “Come on. You can make me a sandwich as an apology.”

“Wait, why am I apologizing? You should make me a sandwich for making me feel inadequate and left out…”

—  
  
 **SKYE**

“BOO!”

Skye’s head flew up, her hand slapped down hard on the table, startled awake by the noise. Only it wasn’t just the table, she noticed, when she lifted her hand back up, stringing along a runny congealed mess.

A Scottish guffaw boomed near her ear.

“I hate you,” she seethed, swerving her head to stab eye daggers into Fitz’s face.

“Hey, this is payback for when you put shaving cream in my hand—”

“I TOLD YOU IT WASN’T ME!” 

The stringy remnants of the smashed egg wiggled around and dripped over her clothes as she jerked her hand around wildly in anger. Thankfully, Jemma handed her a roll of paper towels. As she wiped herself and the counter, Skye began to come down from the adrenaline and settle into her post-afternoon-nap grogginess. She staggered her way to the sink to wash her hands as the two scientists bantered.

“Did you see that, Jemma? Her hand fell right on top of the egg just like I said—”

“I never doubted your calculations, Fitz. I only said that you shouldn’t do it—”

Their voices faded away as Skye stomped to her bunker to change. 

Tiredly she removed her clothes, letting them fall to the floor without any plans of picking them up anytime soon. Even though Ward had tried to instill in her a soldier’s orderly way of living, she could not be bothered to try at the moment. 

Turning around to grab her pajamas from a drawer, Skye jumped, startled by her own reflection in the mirror. After calming down she took a long look at herself. She rubbed the indents of her bracelets that molded into her cheek during her nap before her eyes settled down... There they were. Her scars. The two bullet holes that punctured her stomach and damaged her small and large intestines… now two jagged lines reminding her of her own mortality. A reminder of her stupidity, she thought bitterly, and her lack of true skills as an agent. 

_If Ward and Coulson thought I was fixated on Quinn before…_ If anything, this pushed her even further. But she didn’t want to go in the field again, uninformed and unprepared. She didn’t want anger to overcome her and distract her from being efficient.

She sighed, turning away from the mirror to put her pants on. When Coulson told her of her status as a 0-8-4, she refused to entertain the idea of potentially possessing superpowers. It wasn’t productive and she believed she needed to be completely focused on capturing Quinn. But now, after being on the brink of death and Quinn being prosecuted, she believed it to be impossible. Classic hero stories informed her at a young age that a traumatic moment in a hero’s life usually triggers the emergence of something supernatural. In her case, she managed to survive by the skillful hands of medically trained professionals. For which she was grateful, and yet…

There was a knock on her door startling her from her thoughts as she pulled a shirt over her head. Speaking of medically trained professionals who helped saved her life… She could see through the dark glass that it was Jemma. 

Skye opened the door and let her friend in before settling herself on her bed.

“Hi,” said Jemma, her eyebrows downturned, apologetic about earlier. “You left your laptop in the kitchen.”

Skye grabbed the computer from her hands and opened it. “Thanks.”

Jemma closed the door behind her and faced Skye woodenly, arms clasped in front of her. Sheepishly, she apologized, “Sorry about Fitz. I told him not to do it.”

“Yeah, you really tried to stop him…” said Skye sarcastically.

“He was feeling a bit down earlier, so I had to let him,” Jemma explained. She began to relax and smile despite herself. “Besides, your reaction was kind of hilarious.”

Skye looked up from her computer and narrowed her eyes challengingly. “What I think you meant to say was, ‘Oh, bloody hell, Skye! I’m sorry for laughing at you. Let me make it up to you by telling you all about the love affair between me and Ward.’” The apprehensive look on Jemma’s face was enough to improve Skye’s mood by a thousandfold. “Did I get the accent right?”

“You did not. You ended up sounding like Scarlett O’Hara.”

“Well, your weakness is improv, mine is accents. No one’s perfect. Whatever.” Skye pushed her computer off her lap and onto the bed, shifting her position so she sat on her heels excitedly. “So, Jemma, what’s the scoop? What’s going on between you and Ward?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s nothing ‘going on’ between us.” Skye’s eyes followed Jemma left and right as she began pacing around the tight bunker. “What makes you even say that?”

“Oh, you know…” Skye waggled her eyebrows at Jemma, who stopped pacing and looked so genuinely curious that Skye relented, “Just the way you are with each other! You know, you usually call him ‘Ward,’ but when it’s just you two you call him ‘ _Grant_ ,’ and yes in that voice. Also he’s, like, super nice to you. And pretty affectionate for a guy like him.”

Her heart swelled for her friend as she watched Jemma’s reaction. The way her face softened at Skye’s descriptions, it was as if she were confirming all of Jemma’s own suspicions. Which in part confirmed some of Skye’s suspicions. “When he touched your arm like that, I almost gave myself away!”

“So you were spying on us!”

“Of course I was, Jemma,” said Skye breezily. She turned back to her computer, clicking on unopened satellite images that she managed to steal from other government agencies before she had fallen asleep in the kitchen. “We’re all practically spies anyway. Secret agents or whatever. Semantics. Anyway, what happened when I left?”

“Nothing, really,” Jemma said with a shrug. She plopped down on the bed next to Skye. “He just assured me that because I am not actually going undercover myself I won’t need to come up with a ‘ridiculous, convoluted backstory.’ His exact words by the way. I don’t think it’s ridiculous to be prepared—”

“Oh my God.”

“What?” Skye felt Jemma’s breath on her ear as she had moved closer to peer at the laptop’s screen. “What is it?”

Her body felt like it was buzzing all over. “I think I found Kellerman’s lab. I gotta tell Coulson…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is another chapter without any actual action happening. I promise I have a plan. It's just coming out slower than expected! Thanks for reading.


	3. Submerged (Dark and Light)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, not beta'd. And clearly, because of the most recent episode, this is no-longer canon-complaisant! So I updated the tags :)

**MELINDA MAY**

It was four in the morning, local time. About two hours ago they landed the bus in a small airport nearly a hundred miles east of Seattle. The team was currently wandering around a vast grassy meadow searching for whatever it was that was emitting a notable electromagnetic field. As far as they could tell, there was nothing out of the ordinary in the area except for their parked vehicle, but Fitz’s electromagnetic field scanner indicated otherwise.

Melinda May surveyed her group as they waded through the tall grass with flashlights that hardly penetrated the mist settling over the ground. 

Skye called out to Simmons, “Hey, if we find out what Kellerman’s up to, we probably won’t have to go undercover to your gala!”

May could hear Simmons sigh sleepily, “Okay, but I’d still love it if everyone went.”

In the green glow of Fitz’s full spectrum goggles, May could see his visibly tired eyes struggle to stay open.

During the drive over to Kellerman’s apparent lab, the car was nearly silent save for the occasional yawns coming from the younger members of the team. As senior members of the team who’ve had years of experience in the field, May, Coulson, and Ward were all used to arranging their sleeping schedules around the erratic and inconvenient nature of the work.

Half an hour had passed without any results. May decided they needed to regroup.

After carefully navigating through the low fog, May finally reached Skye. “Let me see the satellite images with the truck.” 

Skye swiped across her tablet then handed it to May. Both women scoured through the images. “The truck always arrives from the east side of the field, always at 2200 hours, and staying for only six…” May muttered, repeating the facts they already heard on the plane.

“Always during the night,” added Ward, walking around them and peering into the dark. “Probably to avoid civilian detection.”

“From who?” wondered Skye. “These are single-lane roads in a rural area, and the nearest active property is 25 miles away.”

“Still, a semi-truck driving around these roads so far off from the nearest freeway will stick out. At least in the evening it’s too dark and too late for anyone to notice. And if they’re using a semi, they’re transporting something big. The question is what is it?”

“And where is it? Or where was it? Either they’re picking something up or dropping something off.”

“I’m guessing there is an underground facility and that’s what’s pinging my metal detector,” Fitz said, wandering by while fiddling with the machine. “From what I can tell, it goes from that western hemlock over there,” he pointed to the tallest tree about 20 meters away from them, “and all the way to our car. I’m guessing about the same length as a football pitch.”

Coulson peered over May’s shoulder to look at the satellite images. “I wonder why they always parked the semi right in the middle of the field instead of where the road ends.”

May lifted her head and turned to stare at Coulson behind her. “That’s because…”

“Of course!”

Skye immediately began tapping rapidly and flipping through the images to confirm May and Coulson’s theory. Every time the truck arrived in the area, it would park in a specific spot every single time, so it was likely that the entrance to the underground facility was right there.

May walked briskly towards the center of the field where the truck usually parked with Ward and Fitz in tow. They noticed the ten tire spots where the grass was crushed deep into the mud indicating the regular parking space of the truck. 

“Okay,” said Skye, walking along with Coulson and Simmons, finally joining the other three. “How do we open the door that we can’t even see?”

Fitz pointed at the ten bald spots. “I think the truck was the key. By placing the wheels on these specific spots it triggered a very simple lock mechanism and opened the entrance. All I need is D.W.A.R.F. to mimic the same force on these spots and then—”

“I found the outline of the door,” said May, interrupting Fitz. She knelt down, pointing at the clear separation between two levels of dirt curving into a perfect circle. Winding her hand with a dense thicket of grass, she pulled until the roots were released from the dirt. May brushed the earth away to reveal metal. 

Fitz’s hands that were holding the D.W.A.R.F. controller dropped to his sides. “Okay, never mind.”

Ward and Coulson stepped closer to help May remove the grass and dirt from the door. The door, after finally being exposed to the cool dawn air, was revealed to be a large round vault-like door with a wheel and axel in the center.

May nodded towards Fitz. “I think we need your seven flying drones now.”

“D.W.A.R.F.,” he clarified.

“Whatever you say, Snow White,” said Skye, clapping him on the back. 

The seven drones flew around the field and the door, attempting to scan through the ground to detect anything suspect inside the facility. As far as they could tell, there was nothing threatening below them.

After turning the wheel as far as it would go, Ward pulled the door open, swinging it up on its hinges. It remained standing perpendicular to the ground after he let it go. May focused her flashlight down the hole, uncloaking a wide metal ladder from darkness. It was bolted onto the thick metal that framed the hole.

The drones flew passed May’s head and into the hole in the ground. The camera feeds showed that the facility was just an empty room.

Ward went down the ladder first. May, Fitz, Skye, and Simmons would follow after. Coulson chose to remain outside as lookout. Before following Ward into the underground room, May watched Coulson attempting to move heavy rocks onto the bald tire spots. 

He looked up sheepishly. “Just trying out Fitz’s theory.”

“Wouldn’t want you to get bored,” May remarked, smirking.

While descending and finally reaching the halfway point to the floor, May noticed the ladder and the door was positioned in the exact center of the room. The ladder ended a foot above the floor.

The facility turned out to be a simple rectangular shape no bigger than a high school gym, definitely smaller than the soccer field that Fitz proposed earlier. It was dark and dank. The only sources of light came from their flashlights and the soft glow of the rising sun beaming down at an ever-changing angle into the manhole.

Ward and Simmons, along with two of the D.W.A.R.F. drones, made their way towards the north side of the room, while May lead Skye, Fitz, and the remaining drones toward the south side. 

“Ugh!” exclaimed Fitz.

May immediately pointed her flashlight in his direction. A large clump of mud had plopped onto his face, threatening to fall into his eye before he swiped it away.

Skye tried to suppress a snicker, but ended up snorting. It echoed throughout the room so loudly that May almost laughed out loud.

“Hey,” said May, trying to suppress a smile, “at least it isn’t shaving cream this time.”

“You weren’t even there when that happened!” said Fitz, pointing at her. He turned his accusing finger to Skye. “Did you tell her?”

Skye shook her head while moving closer to Fitz to brush off the rest of the mud. May started walking ahead of them.

“Wait a tick…”

—  
  
 **GRANT WARD**

_Splash!_

Grant lifted his foot to assess the dampness seeping into the lower part of his pant leg. Of course, he couldn’t really see anything. With a click, his flashlight immediately glared at the puddle and his pants, and then the rest of the room.

He called up, “All clear!”

May climbed down and Fitz, Skye, and Jemma followed. The two higher level agents split the younger three to search different parts of the room for clues.

Jemma reached the edge of the room before him.

Grant chose to walk behind her at a distance. In order to stall himself from taking his usual long strides, he often paused and point his flashlight towards other parts of the room. He noted the maze of skinny pipes running across the ceiling and the slow rate at which different water droplets hit the floor. He could see and feel that the floor of this place was uneven, puddles forming inside several shallow dips into the floor. He listened Skye’s snort echoing throughout the room.

He attempted to focus all his attention on the details of the room, but Jemma invaded most of his thoughts just as she had been for the last couple of weeks.

After Skye got shot by Quinn, Grant spent a lot of time feeling angry, guilty, and helpless. It wasn’t until Skye woke up that Grant really became aware that the rest of the team felt the same way. He became especially aware of Jemma.

Unlike the rest of the team, Jemma with all her medical expertise still felt wholly responsible for Skye’s survival and wellbeing. 

After Skye yelled at him and split her stitches, Jemma ran down to replace them. Grant noticed her glaring at him while he and Skye laughed, but he didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t until both Grant and Jemma left Skye’s temporary medical pod and entered the empty lab that Jemma decided to yell at him. Well, more of a loud whisper than actual yelling. She had been walking ahead of Grant when suddenly she spun around and poked her finger into his chest.

Her uninterrupted tirade explained why she had bags under her eyes and why her usually neat ponytail had been haphazard buns for the duration of Skye’s coma. She yelled at him in a hushed voice about how despite Skye acting like her same old joyful self, she was still recuperating and Grant was just exacerbating Skye’s situation and him laughing along with Skye about how she split her stitches wasn’t helping anyone. Almost five minutes into it, tears began to form in the inner corners of her eyes and threatened to spill over her heated cheeks when she finally stopped herself and buried her face in her hands. 

He placed his hands on her shoulders to steady them down from their tense position. “Breathe,” he had whispered to her, while backing her onto a chair. He grabbed a Kimwipe from the nearest lab bench and handed it to her. She shuddered as she exhaled and wiped away her tears. 

“Sorry,” she said after calming her breathing. She lifted her soaked tissue. “Thanks for this.”

“So, how are you feeling?” he asked her.

Jemma let out an incredulous laugh. Had he not been aware of his reputation for being a hard-ass, he would have been offended.

“You should talk to someone,” he insisted. She closed her eyes, still laughing.

“What’s the point?” she responded, shaking her head. “It’s not like I’m experiencing anything particularly new. Everyone on the team has been feeling the same way. Now that Skye’s awake, it feels like everything is finally settling down, but I can’t… I can’t relax like everyone else!”

“No one is relaxed, Simmons. I think everyone is just relieved—”

“I am too!” Jemma said earnestly. “But I’m still worried. I don’t want anything wrong to happen.”

_Ever again._

Grant nodded, understanding what she meant. Even though she was relatively new to the field, he could see that she understood that it was a pipe dream to hope nothing bad would happen. The worry in her eyes were reminiscent of the days after her “first time skydiving,” as he had called it before. That particular fear of mortality that only happens when someone has approached certain death. Except now it wasn’t her own, but her friend’s.

“It’s stupid. I know it’s stupid—”

“It’s not,” he interrupted. “It’s natural to feel this way.”

“Well, however natural it may be, I hate it.” Jemma shook her head and stood up. She brushed the wrinkles off her front and looked up at him. “When Fitz and I were preparing to be cleared for field work, we were told that should we ever experience any extreme stress we should talk to someone. So, Fitz and I, we decide to be each others confidantes. And we were. Always have been. But I just…” She sighed exasperatedly, placing her hands on her hips and looked away. “I’ve seen how he’s beaten himself up after Skye was shot. And saw how elated he was when Skye woke up. So, I can’t— I don’t _want_ to ruin that by—”

She sighed again, pressing her eyes shut with her fingers. “Nevermind. Excuse me, I think I’ll just busy myself with work—”

She tried to walk around him, but he clasped her hand gently to stop her. “Talk to me. Please.”

And thus began their ritual of _talking_ whenever they were alone together in the lab. First it was purely for morale’s sake. But by the third meeting, he genuinely looked forward to their talks.

He almost had to laugh at himself after the first talk. The last time he felt so frustrated with his emotions, he ended up sleeping with May. But this time he was the one who had experience with the type of frustrations Jemma was feeling, and he was the one guiding her through them. And he knew the best way for her to process those feelings was to talk.

And, boy, did he kept it that way.

Though, they hadn’t spoken to each other since they caught Skye spying on them in the lab. Grant and Jemma had just stood there listening to Skye’s shoes stomping up the stairs until finally Grant remembered to remind Jemma that she was attending the gala as herself and therefore she wasn't required to come up with a ridiculous, convoluted backstory. He then nodded at her curtly before he promptly made his way out of the lab. That was barely 24 hours ago. 

Now, standing approximately five feet behind her, Grant couldn’t help but look at Jemma. At least, what he could see of her. The dark outlines of her head and shoulders stood in contrast with her flashlight’s beam displayed against the wall. The same slender shoulders that he’s touched countless times. To calm her, to congratulate her… to grab her quickly after she passed out and fell backwards threatening to fall into the ocean by herself, her legs wrapped loosely around his waist—

“Look at this!”

Guilt washed over him as he took two big strides, meeting her at the end of the room. She was staring at a small panel on the wall with two green buttons and a red indicator light above the buttons. 

The two drones flying around them stopped to scan the area.

Jemma pointed her flashlight around it and stopped at a small logo at the lower right side of the panel that was half covered with grime. Grant leaned forward to read it.

_S.H.I._

They both turned their heads to look at each other, suspicion drawn on their faces.

Jemma moved her one gloved hand towards the grime to wipe it off. Her hand stopped midway when suddenly the red light turned on.

—  
  
 **MELINDA MAY**

After Fitz and Skye convinced themselves of May’s involvement in the prank on Fitz, their suspicious questions morphed into seeking approval for their prank ideas.

“… and I place the egg in the exact spot that I calculated her hand to hit when she woke up—”

Skye cut him off. “It was a stupid prank!”

“How so? It’s the exact same idea as the whipped cream, except I used physics! And… and maths!” Fitz sputtered. “I think that added a touch of sophistication to my prank.”

Skye scoffed.

May shook her head in amusement, laughing silently and grateful that it was dark in the room. She heard Fitz’s footsteps stop and she turned to shine the light on him once more.

Fitz knelt down to grab a stray bolt from the floor. He turned it over in his gloved hands. “From the size of this, there must have been massive machinery in this room.”

“They must have been using the truck to move whatever it was out of this room,” Skye speculated. “Breaking it down into small pieces to get it through the door. That’s why there’s a stray bolt.”

“Let’s bag it,” said May.

Fitz nodded, placing it into a small plastic bag and placing it into the messenger back slung around his shoulder.

At the edge of the room they found two large circular doors similar to the one they encountered above ground. The D.W.A.R.F. drones were already busy scanning the doors as the May, Fitz, and Skye approached.

May and Skye peered over Fitz’s shoulders to watch the drones’ camera feeds on his tablet. The infrared feeds displayed dark purple masses with bright blue and green cylindrical shapes, while the x-ray feeds showed pipes the same diameter as the doors leading farther south beyond the room.

“Strange,” Fitz whispered to himself. “I can’t see why they would put these kinds of doors on sewage pipes. Drains are usually below the floor…”

Suddenly two loud clicks echoed throughout the room and the two doors breathed open slightly ajar. All three of them took a step back.

May could hear it before Fitz noticed anything from the feeds.

“FALL BACK!” May screamed, pulling Skye and Fitz away from the doors. Turning and pushing them ahead of her, they all ran towards the ladders. The whooshing sounds coming from the two doors became louder and louder until finally water exploded into the room. 

Fitz and Skye both reached the ladder when the cold water reached May’s back, pushing her roughly towards them. Both of her arms enveloped the other two, her hands forming an iron grip around the metal rungs of the ladder on either side of them. She knew the water was making her crush Fitz and Skye against the ladder. 

“Climb!” May commanded.

Skye went up first, then Fitz. May’s head was already tilted back allowing her to breath the air above the water level.

She began to climb after the two when the room shook slightly. Looking past the ladder, May saw Ward and Simmons struggling to swim against the rushing current towards the ladder. But they disappeared from view when the door above them shut, drowning everyone in darkness.

—  
  
 **GRANT WARD**

_Click click._

“Oh, no.”

“FALL BACK!”

Grant’s hand was already latched onto Jemma’s before he heard the panicked shouts. He tugged on her arm to help her pick up the pace as they tried to race against their limited time. 

He watched as the two vault doors were thrown back, hitting the wall with a thunderous boom that was nearly drowned out by the noise of the rushing water. In front of them, May was thrusted forward, and the water surrounded the three trapped against the ladder.

Grant knew that he and Jemma weren't going to make it. Immediately, with fear washing over him, he covered her body with his to brace themselves from the impact. He shut his eyes tight.

They were thrown backward towards the wall they just tried to run from. 

He heard a sick crack when the side of his head collided with the wall. Opening his eyes, his vision blurred as he stared at Jemma’s two heads tilting upward to keep from being submerged.

The water was pouring out of the pipes at a rate so quick that it almost reached Grant’s ears by the time he realized they had to swim towards the ladder. Jemma was already treading water with one hand tugging on Grant’s collar as if to wake him from his stupor and make him float with her.

It was almost impossible to swim against the current the incoming water was causing. 

Grant’s vision corrected itself as he grabbed Jemma, his arm sliding her back and his hand clenched her side, lifting her closer to him as he reached for the the walls. He had not noticed before that the walls of the room were lined with half-columns protruding from the wall every five or so feet. In order to reach the ladder, Grant thought quickly, they would have to scale these columns to make their way around the room and then allow the current to push them towards the ladder.

“Hold onto me!” he yelled, moving Jemma’s arm around his neck. She moved behind him and her hands clasped together in front of his neck. Holding onto one column, he tried to make his way around it. Reaching the other side, he pushed them off to swim towards the next column. 

He barely touched the other column when everything was submerged in darkness. 

“COULSON!” He could hear Skye’s panicked scream echo throughout the room.

Despite the darkness, Grant continued pushing off one column to grab onto the next.

He was becoming confused about his spatial awareness. He had been using Fitz and Skye’s screams to compare his current position to theirs, but he was nearly deaf due to the water clogged in his ears and the loud sounds of the water sloshing against the walls. It was getting harder for him to feel the reverberations…

It was also becoming more difficult to move. He reached blindly over the column attempting to find a steady grip onto the concrete but the wild chops of the water and the grime on the column made it even more difficult. He slipped, and they went under.

When he came up gasping, he felt Jemma’s body behind him, her hands trying to maintain a grip around his chest, pulling him up from under his arms. Light was shining from above again. His vision, blurred by the water webbing between his lashes, was doubling once more. 

He blinked and the source of light became larger. Every time he opened his eyes, he seemed to be getting even closer to the light…

“Come on, Grant,” he could hear Jemma’s muffled voice say to him. “I can’t do this without you.”

He opened his eyes again. The light reflecting off the pool of water was just as blinding as the darkness had been. He squinted against the glare and saw Jemma’s arm reaching over him, gripping onto a piece of rope. He tried forcing himself to stay conscious, grabbing some of the rope and handing off the end to Jemma.

“Tie this around my thighs.”

He took the reigns on the rope with one hand, wrapping it multiple times around his wrist. With one arm, he tried to hold onto Jemma before she ducked into the water, moving the rope around him and tying it at his front. She gasped for breath as she came up, her hands clenching the front of his soaked shirt. 

“Wrap your legs around me,” he told her, his free arm wrapped around her waist tightly. “Hold on!”

Looking up, he saw the manhole had become an enormous rectangle. May, Coulson, and Fitz stood above them, holding onto the other end of the rope. 

Jemma shivered in his lap as they were lifted out of the water. His grip around her and the rope became tighter as he willed himself to stay conscious.

Grant felt Coulson grab his arms, lifting the both of them onto the grass. He flopped backwards, Jemma falling with him. He could feel Coulson drop onto the ground with them, panting, “Are you two trying to make it a habit of almost dying in water?”

“At least we don’t have to deal with the Moroccan coast guard,” replied Grant, before passing out.


	4. Recuperation and Preparation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Organizing and writing the last couple of chapters took longer than I anticipated. Sorry about that! And thanks for reading.

**GRANT WARD**

****

“Hey. Hey!”

Grant opened his eyes to glare at Skye. “I’m not comatose. I was just thinking.”

“Well, think with your eyes open!” Sky exclaimed. She swiveled her chair back to face her laptop. “Simmons will kill me if something happens to you under my watch.”

“You guys a making a big deal out of nothing. I don’t think I hit my head that hard.”

Skye held her hands up. “Hey, if you want to argue with professional opinion, then be my guest. Simmons should be up here in half an hour.”

He sighed inaudibly, sinking further into his pillow.

Almost a day had passed since they almost drowned in Kellerman’s underground lab. If it weren’t for Coulson who spent his time as lookout adjusting rocks onto the tire spots and eventually opening the large door that the semi truck usually unlocked, the rest of the team might have drowned in that room. 

After a CT scan confirmed that Grant was suffering from a concussion after hitting his head on the concrete wall of the lab, they stationed themselves in Seattle so he and the team could recuperate and wait for further instruction from S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ. They ended up receiving a series of unfortunate news.

Fitz discovered that the bolt he found at the lab was plated with a special alloy used only in an enhanced electrostatic generator developed by the pre-S.H.I.E.L.D. Strategic Scientific Reserve back in the 1944. This led to Skye speculating Kellerman’s real purpose of being at the gala was to get to Simmons, whose research dealt with the Chitauri virus that transferred from person to person via static electricity. Coulson wanted to scrap the undercover mission and requested another team aid their efforts in capturing Kellerman immediately but it was as if Kellerman dropped off the face of the earth, disappearing from everyone’s radar almost instantly after the incident in the lab-turned-pool.

Now the team was spending most of their time trying to find Kellerman. Only Grant was forced to rest in his bunk until he was cleared for duty.

Grant lifted himself into a sitting position.

“What are you doing now?” asked Skye, whose eyes were glued on her laptop and her fingers tapping rapidly on the keyboard.

“I’m just going to get my knives.” He groaned as he got off his bed for the first time since he was forced to rest. “If you’re not going to let me close my eyes, I should at least keep busy.”

Grant grabbed a thick roll of cloth from the shelf across the room and took it back to his bed. Settling himself in a sitting position with his legs stretched out before him, he grabbed a tray from his desk where Skye placed her laptop. He unrolled the cloth along the tray resting on his lap, exposing several knives of various sizes.

“I didn’t know you fought with anything other that your guns,” said Skye, surprised. She faux-flexed her arms. “And _your guns_.”

“May lent me these. Said something about how maintaining them would help me…” 

He trailed off when Skye’s hand moved toward one of the knives. He scowled at her and she drew her hand back. 

She suggested pointedly, “With your anger problems?”

He carefully lifted a dull knife by the blade and offered it to her handle first. She gripped it and peered at the blade. 

While picking up the honing rod and another knife, he responded, “Well, it’s more soothing than gun maintenance.”

Skye snorted. “Wow.”

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just…” Skye said, shaking her head in wonder. “I once dated a guy who said the exact same thing about knife-care. He was a wannabe chef. Libertarian type of guy. Also super into hunting. It didn’t last long.”

Grant nodded with casual disinterest. He continued to buffer one the knife.

“So, Ward, when was the last time you dated someone? Are you seeing anybody right now?”

He looked up from his tray of knives, concern spreading across his face. He lowered his voice, and said calmly, “Skye, I think it’s best if we remain—”

Skye blanched, and then she laughed before he could finish his sentence. “Oh, shut up, that’s not what I meant! Don’t be so full of yourself.”

His shoulders relaxed as he shot her a sheepish grin. “Well, that’s a relief.”

“Hmm. So,” Skye began once more, holding the knife from one end to the other with both index fingers, and leering at him curiously. “How’s your love life?”

He let out an exasperated sigh as he focused his attention on the knives. He was used to Skye going off on inappropriate tangents, but just as he had the first time he chose not to engage.

“Good, don't respond. It's fine. I really do enjoy our conversations when I'm the one doing all the talking," said Skye bluntly, placing the knife down on the keyboard of her laptop. "So I’m just going to go ahead and say it: there’s something going on between you and Simmons. Don’t deny it! It’s very clear to me.”

He said nothing. The rhythmic hissing from the two metals sliding against another was the only noise coming from his direction.

“If I could give you some advice,” she continued, “I’d tell you lay off those lame jokes. They are incredibly stupid and would probably never work on anyone but Simmons so you're lucky in that respect, but—”

“Why are you so interested in the idea of me and Simmons?” Grant interrupted her, putting the sharpening rod and the knife down.

“Because it’s super cute?” Skye shrugged, smiling hopefully at Grant. His brows sank to his unamused eyes. She relented and continued, “Because she melts your cold robotic heart? I don’t know! You’re really kind to her. And you care about her a lot. It shows. I think you guys could be really happy together. And I think you two deserve to be happy.”

Grant wasn’t convinced. “I’m not miserable, Skye. I don’t think Simmons is either.” 

Skye opened her mouth to retort, but Grant cut her off. “I think you’re using us as a distraction. Something’s bothering you.”

“Well, yeah,” she rolled her eyes and scoffed. “A lot of things are bothering me. I want to stop this Kellerman guy from whatever the hell he’s doing, especially if it involves Simmons. I’m still very pissed off at myself for getting shot. And I’m frustrated because I feel like our training hasn’t made a difference in my self-confidence as an agent! If we end up going undercover, I’m gonna be a nervous wreck. So, yes, I am using you two as a distraction!”

She blew out a frustrated gust of air, and he watched her eyes widened as if she just realized she was shouting. She threw him a rueful glance. “Sorry for screaming at you.”

“You really shouldn’t be doing that,” said Grant jokingly in an attempt to ease the tension in the small room. “I’m concussed, remember?”

“I thought you said you didn’t hit your head that hard.”

He replied using her words from earlier, “I can’t argue with professional opinion.”

Skye groaned, waving her hands in front of her. “Can we get back to what I was talking about?”

“And what was that?”

She let out a frustrated noise. “Come on. I just poured my emotions out to you. Reciprocate. Be a team player.”

“Yes, I do like Simmons,” he said finally. Skye’s eyebrows shot up, surprised that he actually answered. He continued, “I like everyone on the team.”

He smirked when she glared at him. But eventually he relented. 

He wasn’t sure if it was because of the concussion, but he didn’t actually care if Skye knew. It wouldn’t change the fact that he had yet to act upon his feelings for Jemma. Considering his track record with another female member of the team, and among other valid S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol reasons, he wasn’t quite sure he should act on them at all.

He turned stare at the expansive airfield outside his window. The corner of his lips slowly turned upwards as he spoke, “I find her very attractive. And I think she’s incredibly kind and self-less, which can be frustrating when I’m trying to protect you guys… Sometimes her scientific curiosity makes her very intense. But I find it endearing.”

A tiny squeak escaped Skye's lips so Grant turned to look at her. Her expression was soft, and her eyes were a little watery.

“I’ve never seen you so…” she sniffled, practically pantomimic. “Human!”

“Okay, are you done? Are you distracted enough?” He shook his head, somewhat embarrassed, before turning back to his previous task. Skye hummed contentedly.

“Hey, when I’m done ‘resting,’ we can start training you in knife combat, if you want,” offered Grant, trying to change the subject and help Skye at the same time. “And if we end up going undercover, I’ll try to make sure you’re prepared for anything.”

“Thanks, Ward,” said Skye appreciatively. She handed back the knife.

They both turned their heads towards the knock on the door. It was Jemma. She waved at them through the dimmed glass.

Skye slid the door open and leaned back into her chair, “ _Hey,_ Simmons.”

“Hello, Skye! How’s our patient?” asked Jemma cheerfully, stepping aside Skye to enter the bunker. Skye swiveled in her chair to follow her, and stopped the chair to face Grant. He ignored her not-so-subtle glances between him and Jemma.

Jemma smiled warmly at him as she took a seat next to his stretched out legs. Her thigh rested against his calf, and he wasn’t sure if the tingle came from her proximity or because his leg was asleep.

Grant could see Skye’s excited expression from the corner of his eyes. 

“Uh,” Grant cleared his throat. “Like I said before, I feel fine.”

“Did you manage to get any rest?” Jemma asked. 

“That’s kind of hard to do when Skye keeps shouting to make sure I’m not dead,” Grant noted casually.

“Oh, ha ha,” said Skye, standing up and grabbing her laptop off the desk. “I’m gonna go update Coulson.”

Skye slid the door close after she exited the bunker.

“So, is it your turn for Ward duty?” asked Grant lightheartedly.

“Yes, but I promise I won’t pester you,” said Jemma. 

He shook his head but his protest died off when the aroma of her shampoo invaded his senses. She scooted forward and leaned over him to lift the tray of knives off his lap and placed it on the desk. It was a subtle fragrance. He inhaled again to appreciate her sharp fresh scent, with bit of citrus hinted at the end.

Grant tried to keep his heartbeat steady as she lifted his hand into hers to check his pulse. He wasn’t quite sure when he began this practice. Before, whenever she patched him up after a scuffle, he had always remained somewhat calm. It was a common enough routine, having someone with medical training poke and prod him, considering his job. Despite this, lately whenever it was Jemma’s skilled hands treating him, his senses were on overdrive. He stared at her soft fingers as they pressed firmly onto his wrist. The soft ticks from her watch were drowned out by his heartbeat.

It felt like an eternity had passed when she let go. 

“You should get some rest,” she whispered softly as though she hadn’t used her voice in a while.

He finally lifted his eyes to stare at her face. “You’re not afraid I’ll go into a coma?”

She smiled at him comfortingly. “Actually, it’s a common misconception that one should avoid sleep after being concussed. Recent studies show that sleep is the best thing that helps someone recover from a concussion.”

Grant chuckled silently at her factoid.

“If you want,” Jemma continued, “I can bring up an EEG to monitor you while you sleep.”

She absentmindedly brushed his hair to the side as she spoke, fingers brushing against his the top of his forehead delicately. Tingles spread throughout his scalp and slithered down his spine. He shivered, and watched as a surprised and self-conscious expression spread across her face. She shot him a bashful smile before withdrawing her hand, clasping it with her other, and wringing them slightly in her lap. She looked away.

He could tell from the charged atmosphere that what he was feeling was definitely mutual. He knew he shouldn’t, but he had to act at least in some way or another.

“That’s fine,” he told her, barely audible. He reached forward a bit to touch her arm and her hands stilled. She began to relax as his knuckles grazed the softness of her sweater. This was different from all the other times he had touched her arm. Now it was more private, more intimate. 

They remained that way for a while, before Jemma moved to sit on the chair that Skye had previously occupied. The absence of her warmth was short-lived as she leaned forward against his bed and took his hand in hers once more. And it wasn’t to check his pulse.

He savored the fact that she touched him with such tenderness, so comfortably and without embarrassment. He was staring at their clasped hands, heat swelling throughout his chest, when she finally spoke again.

“So, I told Coulson about what we saw. I don’t know if you remembered…”

“Uh,” Grant tried to wrack his brain before remembering. “Half of the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo we saw on the panel?”

She nodded, biting her bottom lip.

“And what did he say?”

“He told me that it probably has something to do with the bolt Fitz found, but he’d look into it and that I should keep it to myself. A bit strange, isn’t it?”

“Yeah…” Grant nodded, his brow furrowing as he mulled over possible reason’s for Coulson’s secrecy. He didn’t want to worry Jemma with his recent slight distrust of Coulson, so he teased her, “Is this your idea of ‘keeping it to yourself’?”

She squeezed his hand as she scrunched her nose. “You were there! Anyway, you should be sleeping.”

He settled into a laying position. He could feel her eyes scan his form while she shook her head in wonder.

“What?”

“I just think it’s weird that you can sleep comfortably without a blanket.”

“It’s part of my training to be alert at all times. I’m used to sleeping on a cot, fully dressed, prepared for anything.”

“Well, right now you should be resting comfortably.” 

She reached for the thin sheet that was folded neatly at the end of his bed and tossed it towards him. He caught it and to appease her, he placed it over his middle, still folded.

He grinned at her playfully. “Try not to do any weird experiments on me while I’m asleep.”

Two days later, Grant kept his promise to Skye. 

Feeling bold after days of bed rest and after he taught her how to sharpen the knives on a whet stone and made her practice hand to hand combat for an hour, he allowed her to use the sharpened knife while they trained. He was confident enough in their skills to avoid the blade.

She spun quicker than he anticipated, her armed hand swinging in a forceful arc. Grant sucked in his abdomen to avoid being sliced, but he saw the blood before he felt the sting. He hissed at the sharp pain.

Grant gingerly lifted his shirt (another one ruined) to look at the short red line spread across the right side of his abdomen.

The knife clattered on the floor as Skye gasped. “Oh my God! I’m so, I’m so sorry, I didn’t—”

At the sound of Skye’s panicked apologies, he shook his head. 

“Don’t worry, it’s just a flesh wound,” he assured her.

Jemma was waving them over to the lab as soon as Skye called for her. Skye awkwardly and worriedly hovered around him on his way to the lab, and stopping at the door. 

Grant leaned against the lab bench spread with gauze and ointments, and lifted his shirt so Jemma could examine the cut.

“Honestly, you two,” Jemma muttered exasperatedly, moving directly in front of him and leaning over him with gauze. He could feel her warm breath against his skin as she put pressure on his wound. “Playing with knives! And it’s only been three days since you hit your head. I specifically said you shouldn’t be doing any strenuous activity!”

She placed another hand firmly on his side, above his hip. “Stop moving so much.”

Grant held his breath. Despite their chaste hand-holding two days ago, he still felt electrified whenever she touched him.

“It’s a good thing you sharpened those knives. This will barely leave a scar.” She stood up straighter, removing the gauze. He had stopped bleeding.

“But it’s too bad you haven’t sharpened your evasive maneuvering skills.”

He stared at her with a blank expression.

“Or,” she continued in an amused tone, leaning around him to grab hydrogen peroxide from the lab bench. “Perhaps you just trained Skye extremely well.”

“Yes, that’s it exactly,” he said quietly, fingering the edge of her lab coat. He watched her bite her reddening cheeks to keep herself from grinning. She peered up at him with twinkling eyes as she cleaned the wound. 

He adjusted his stance in an excuse to tilt his head closer to hers. He said in a low voice, “I’m surprised you haven’t hooked me up to any machines yet to check my brain.”

“I just might if you keep being stupid. Take it easy!”

He leaned in closer. “I never do.”

She grabbed one of his hands suddenly, rousing his desire to act on his feelings, but instead she simply placed it on the gauze already pressed against him. She smirked, tilting her face up to look him in the eyes. “Hold this. I need to grab some tape from the back.”

He stared at her back with admiration as she retreated to the storage room behind the lab. A snicker come from the sliding glass door as Jemma finally disappeared from view, and Grant realized Skye had been watching them the whole time. Again.

“Skye, why don’t you go do some pull ups?”

Skye pursed her lips in annoyance at his instructions, before wagging her finger and pointing at the area around Grant. “Cute moment. You’re welcome for this, by the way.”

He glared at her, frowning.

“Are you saying you cut me on purpose?” he asked skeptically. Of course she didn’t, he thought. She didn’t have the skills to calculate that kind of movement.

Skye shrugged as she walked backwards, slinking behind the glass doors in a suspicious matter. “I guess you’ll never know.”

\- - -  
  
 **SKYE**

She, of course, did not cut Ward on purpose. Even though he was still recovering, he was consistently on point during their training. While she was appalled at the fact that she had injured him, she was also impressed that she managed to get the draw on him. Balancing the guilt and her growing self-confidence in combat had momentarily waged a small war inside her, but since Ward and Jemma found it an opportune moment to flirt with each other and ignore her, she felt less guilty for injuring him.

Nonetheless, Ward continued to shoot suspicious glances at Skye even as the team gathered in the briefing room a couple days later.

Earlier she hacked her way into Kellerman’s event calendar. After searching the edit history of his calendar, she found that all his appointments were deleted recently, except for the gala.

Disguising herself as an executive assistant of a rival CEO, Skye called to double-check with the International Science Foundation’s event coordinator who told her that Kellerman sent an RSVP a couple days ago (“Around the same time Jemma sent hers,” Skye told Coulson). The event coordinator, in an attempt to siphon some funds for her foundation, slyly mentioned that he also donated a significant amount of money a month earlier. That was before it was even announced that Jemma was an award recipient.

With all this new information it was becoming clear to everyone that Kellerman's attendance at the gala would depend entirely on whether or not Jemma Simmons was going to make an appearance. The team was hesitant, but Coulson felt pressure from HQ to pursue it.

At the final briefing, Coulson informed them of their updated objective, which was to attend the gala and to arrest Kellerman on sight. It was just a waiting game with Jemma being used as the bait. 

But they also didn’t want to alert Kellerman of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s presence at the gala and scare him away.

Their plan was a bit similar to their initial one: Fitz and Simmons would attend the gala together as themselves, Skye patrolling the room as an event server, and May, after entering as a rich philanthropist, would sneak away to patrol the rest of the building for any suspicious behavior. The news of Kellerman’s donation to the ISF made the team extremely weary of the foundation’s potential involvement in his plans.

Coulson decided to switch roles with Ward. Since the beta team would still be working with them, Coulson felt that Ward who still recovering from a concussion would better fulfill the duty as Simmons' bodyguard-slash-getaway man should Kellerman try to make a move for her.

Ward would enter the gala as a philanthropist as well, pretending to be someone Jemma knew and ‘catch up’ with her, using that as an excuse to remain by her side without looking like an assigned body guard. Coulson would now act as one of the bartenders, giving him the advantage of surveying the entire gala. 

(Skye hacked her way into a temp agency and planted her and Coulson’s fake identities into the pool of workers. Feeling bad for taking away work opportunities from real temps, she managed to convince Coulson to send them all free trips on a cruise.)

After the briefing, May left to prepare the Bus for flight, and Coulson retreated back to his office. Skye felt somewhat anxious about the mission as she followed Fitz out of the room. She only half-listened to Jemma fretting over Ward’s role as someone she knew from her past.

Ward chuckled as he walked passed the three of them and headed towards the stairs. “If it will make you feel better, feel free to prepare an in-depth background for me. Just don’t go overboard. Like Coulson said, it’s just an excuse for me to be at your side during the gala.”

“‘Overboard’ is practically her middle name,” whispered Skye, happily using Jemma’s nervousness to divert her from her own. She flopped onto the couch. Fitz snorted as he followed suit.

After Ward left, Jemma sighed heavily as she dropped into a seat next to Skye. “How am I going to fit a rich philanthropist into my life story?”

Skye waggled her eyebrows and Jemma gently swatted her hand. 

“Alright, alright. How about this: you guys, umm, met during vacation or whatever…” Skye’s eyes wandered around the room, her hands rotating aimlessly while she thought of a scenario for Jemma and Ward’s undercover background relationship. “And you two had a one night stand. While he was asleep you had to sneak away into the night, and you've regretted it ever since. You can be each other’s one-that-got-away! Then when you reunite at the gala there’s so much unresolved sexual tension and—”

“I think if anyone’s going to sneak away into the night after a one night stand, it’s going to be Ward,” interjected Fitz. “Sorry, Jemma.”

Jemma’s cheeks were as bright as a tomato as she stared blankly at the pair of them.

“That’s not the point of my story,” said Skye. It was becoming very typical for Fitz to argue with her over small things. “The point is that they had a passionate night together—”

Fitz threw his hands up. “Why does it have to be a sexual encounter at all?”

“Because that'll make it interesting!”

“We’re helping her prepare backstory! We’re not writing a television drama!”

“Fine," Skye sighed frustratingly. "Then they can be distant cousins who met once at a family reunion. Boring enough?”

“Family friends is better.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Simmons, what do you think—?”

Skye turned towards the chair Jemma was seated, but it was empty. Both Fitz and Skye looked around and saw that she had already made her way to the stairwell.

"You two are the worst!" Jemma called out behind her.

"Well, that's rude," said Fitz as Jemma disappeared from view. "We were just trying to help."

It was nearly five in the afternoon when Skye and Coulson pulled into the parking garage across the street from the newly renovated ISF funded research facility in San Francisco where the gala was being held.

“Ready, _Cole Filson?_ ” asked Skye, leaning towards Coulson. Despite her teasing grin, her stomach started to churn in trepidation of events to come.

Coulson set the logo-less S.H.I.E.L.D. SUV to park before commenting, “Next time, try to be more creative with the fake names.”

Already dressed in their event staff uniforms of white button ups, green vests, and black slacks, the two made their way to the skyway that connected the garage to the research building. Skye lugged around a large backpack filled with equipment for the team’s communications. They made a small detour on their way to the atrium to break into a custodial closet so she could set up the equipment. 

“Want to go over the plan?” Coulson asked.

“Um,” Skye began with a shaky voice, “after I set this up, we’re going to help set up the event. May will arrive first. Then Fitzsimmons, and then Ward. Fitz and I will meet up in this room to prepare the second set of coms, which are basically Fitz-enhanced old-timey radio-frequency ham radio walkie talkies. I don't even know. And then we wait for Kellerman to arrive.”

“And if he does?”

“Ward will extract Simmons as we alert the beta team. And we make sure Kellerman stays put until they arrive.”

Coulson placed a gentle hand on Skye’s shoulders. “And if Kellerman doesn’t show up?”

Skye took a deep breath and smiled. “Then we support Simmons when she receives her award. And then we return to the bus, and continue our search this asshole.”

“I think ‘this fucking asshole,’ were my exact words.”

Skye laughed, easing the tension in her shoulders. 

Guest started to arrive at exactly eight o’clock. Skye circled the room with a tray of canapés, watching her team trickle into the atrium as the first fifteen minutes of the hour passed.

She watched as Fitz and Simmons entered together, arms locked together as they looked around the decorated space in awe. 

“Is that Leo Fitz?” asked a tall, gangly man who had snatched a canapé from Skye. 

She almost answered when she realized he was talking to a bespectacled woman next to him. 

“I think it is!” exclaimed the woman in a tone of admiration. “I didn’t realize he’d be here!”

Skye offered the woman a canapé, but she declined. Wanting to hear more about Fitz from these two awestruck people, Skye slowly circled and gravitated around them.

“I haven’t heard from him in a while,” said the woman. “His graduate work on nano fibers was the basis for my latest lithium-ion battery prototype!”

The man ignored the woman and asked, “Who’s that woman with him?”

“Hmm. I think that’s Dr. Simmons.”

“The biochemist? I’m surprised he befriended anyone outside of material sciences. I guess he grew up since our MIT days,” the man said snottily. A desire to smash canapés onto his suit began to stir within Skye.

“I thought he was only 14 during your MIT days?” The woman rolled her eyes at her companion. “Anyway, I heard they were both recruited by some government agency.”

The man scoffed. “So, what? The FBI wanted to recruit me as an undergrad, but I told them I wanted to develop cleaner automobiles. And I did!”

The woman sighed, “No one cares, Daniel.”

And with that, Skye retreated, having heard enough engineering posturing for the night…

\- - -  
  
 **LEO FITZ**

“So, did you come up with a backstory for you and Ward?” Fitz asked Simmons. They were seated in the back of a taxi, on their way to the gala. Simmons kept fidgeting with her purse and wrinkled index cards containing her speech.

“Um, well…”

Fitz’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious? You of all people don’t have a plan? What are you going to do?”

“Ward’s convinced me that I’ll be fine just winging it.”

“Seems like Ward can convince you of anything lately…”

Simmons huffed, “Have you been gossiping with Skye? You two are starting to sound very similar.”

“Doubt it. Her Scottish accent is deplorable.”

“I meant in your innuendos. Anyway, the gist is that he’s a friend of a very distant relative by marriage. Met once at a wedding. I haven’t prepared much other than that. Ward said if I get flustered, then he’ll be able to cover for me. He has good ideas from time to time, yes?”

She stopped fidgeting and began to fan herself with her index cards. Fitz gently clasped her wrist and set it down gently in her lap.

“You’ll do fine!” He pat her shoulder encouragingly. “How’s your speech?”

"Oh, it's fine." She inhaled deeply before turning to him. “In case I don’t get the chance to say it in front of everyone, I just want you to know that this award... All of it depended on you. If it wasn’t for you, I literally wouldn’t be here tonight.”

Fitz nodded in acknowledgement, unsure how to respond to her earnest display of gratitude. He gulped anxiously as he tried to suppress the memories of that day from surging through his mind. She squeezed his arm before reaching up to kiss him on the cheek. Then he felt her thumb rub against his face.

“Sorry, I got a bit of lipstick on you. Here,” she began to lick her thumb before he pulled away. “Hold still!”

The troubling memories immediately vanished from his mind as he yelped, “Oy!” 

He only relented when she put her thumb down and pulled out a tissue from her bag. She handed it to him and he rubbed his cheeks with it.

“Now it just looks like your blushing like mad on one cheek!”

He stopped wiping and tapped his cheek. “Maybe you can kiss me again so it’ll look like we just snogged.”

She snorted, pushing him away. “Fitz!”

By the time they arrived at the gala, the lipstick stain on his cheek was nearly gone.

The renovated atrium was nearly two times taller than it was wide, with the floors above exposed to the space. A wall of glass panels served as the front of the building, and a glass dome-like ceiling that was slowly dimming as the sun descended behind the horizon. Fitz and Simmons, walking slowly inside the building with their eyes fixated on the modern fixtures, barely made it ten feet inside before being approached by a small group of scientists clamoring for an introduction.

Thankfully they were saved by Ward’s arrival. Well, Simmons was thankful. Fitz quite enjoyed being the center of attention by his peers.

“Jemma?”

Fitz turned to watch as Ward approached them both, pretending to be an ex-boyfriend of a second cousin of an American that Simmons’ great aunt married. That long winded detail definitely had a certain Simmons flair to it. 

After he shook Ward’s hand, ‘meeting’ him for the first time, he spotted Skye across the room, serving canapés to that prat Daniel Cogman from MIT. Fitz excused himself and followed Skye as she made her way towards the double doors at the back of the room.

She was leaning against the wall with her steel serving tray tucked under her arm when he exited the atrium and entered the empty hallway. She led him to the custodial closet so he could work on his enhanced radio transceiver.

“It was so boring breaking into this room with your little unlocking gizmo,” said Skye. He could hear her pace behind him as he knelt in front of the machine. “I kinda missed you playing my fake boyfriend.”

“Oh, that reminds me!” Fitz stood and turned to face her, unbuttoning his jacket.

“Whoa, what are you doing?” Skye hugged her tray against her chest. “This is not what I meant.”

He finally removed his jacket to point at the holsters at his sides. “I forgot to give you these before you and Coulson left. Recently modified Night-Night guns. They’re small, but they pack a punch. I tried to maximize power into a limited space, so they aren’t noticeable under your vest.”

He handed her one of the guns, and began to remove the holsters so she could put them on. 

“They’re so tiny!” Skye exclaimed, her tray clattering down onto a janitorial cart as she began to test the weight of the gun in the palm of her hand. Then sh drew it up quickly in the same matter Ward would do when testing a gun. Fitz cackled.

“Have you ever seen Men in Black?” Skye asked, removing her vest to don the holsters. “Because this reminds me of that small gun Agent K gives Jay.”

“Ah yes, the Noisy Cricket,” Fitz recalled. “That movie was actually my inspiration for this particular modification. I love Will Smith.”

“Me too! He was my favorite actor when I was a kid. You know,” mused Skye, “mine and Ward’s relationship kind of reminds me of K and Jay.”

“I feel the same way about me and Jemma.”

“Which one is which?” asked Skye, struggling to tighten the holster strap. Fitz leaned around her to help adjust the strap.

“Um, I’m obviously the Will Smith of the relationship. Jemma's a no-nonsence, crotchety old man.”

She cocked her head to the side, pondering out loud, “I think you guys are more like Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith in Independence Day.”

“And I’m Will Smith’s character, right?”

“No, you’re Jeff Goldblum.”

“Well, how on earth is Jemma like Will Smith? If anything, she is a Carlton.”

“You know what,” said Skye, “I’m probably just thinking about how you remind me of Jeff Goldblum, period.”

“I… I mean I don’t see—” Fitz let go of the straps and placed a hand on his hip, waving the other around in confusion. “Well, I don’t know how to respond to that.”

Skye pointed at him while nodding appreciatively. “That is spot on!”

“Hey, you two,” Coulson’s voice boomed into their ears. “If I wanted to know your opinions on Will Smith’s filmography, I’d listen to your podcast. Focus on the mission.”

Fitz felt his cheeks heat up as he bent over the radio equipment, and switching it to manual "push to talk" transmissions.

“You’re still the worst fake girlfriend I’ve ever had!” he hissed at her, embarrassed that the team had been listening to their conversation.

“Why are you so angry?” Skye shrugged, buttoning up her vest. She grabbed her tray and opened the door. “Personally, I find Jeff Goldblum very attractive.”

The door shut behind her. Fitz slowly slipped his arms into his jacket, still wondering what Skye’s comment meant. Maybe she was just teasing him. He was still a bit confused as he approached the door leading to the atrium, but he couldn’t help but saunter into the gala with a new sense of self-confidence.

\- - -  
  
 **SKYE**

She couldn’t resist smiling to herself when she noticed Fitz enter the room again in a slight strut, his back a little straighter and his head held high.

Almost immediately he was approached by a group of people who seemed eager to speak to him.

Coulson shook his head at her sublty when she approached the bar. While loading her tray with flutes of champagne, he whispered, “I have a feeling you two are going to host a Men in Black marathon in the near future.”

“Please,” said Skye, rolling her eyes as she carefully lifted the tray of beverages on one hand. “We’re obviously going to have a Bad Boys marathon too!”

Skye worked her way around the room. Her focus was split between not dropping the tray and searching for Kellerman’s face in the crowd. Coulson was still at the bar, Fitz was still speaking to the group he was with earlier, and Ward stood dutifully next to Jemma as she spoke to several people. The coms were mostly quiet, except for when May updated the team when she managed to clear a floor.

Skye groaned inwardly as she heard a familiar voice grumbling about Fitz once more. 

“— The only reason he’s here tonight is because he’s someone’s plus one. He didn’t even get invited himself! If Fitz is so brilliant like everyone says he is, then he’d be an award recipient tonight—”

This comment seemed to be the last straw for the woman who was speaking to Daniel earlier. She set her empty glass on Skye’s tray suddenly, and walked away.

Skye was about to walk away as well, annoyance swelling inside of her. She wasn’t sure she could keep herself from spilling champagne all over him. She stopped abruptly when she heard Daniel turn to someone else, saying, “So, I heard Alex Kellerman’s making an appearance tonight. I also heard that he’s been vetting a couple of electrical engineers for some new venture he’s working on. A couple buddies of mine ended up getting rejected—”

_Wait._ Skye stood completely still, her stomach dropping. She began to scan the room in panic. _Kellerman’s looking for engineers?_


End file.
